Cooking For Two
by sakurasencha
Summary: Sybil Branson attempts to cook dinner, with predictable results.


_I would like to call this crack but I bet it actually happened. A tale of the Bransons in Ireland, now 100% angst free! Thanks to **hat in a box** for the beta and **3down1up** for the input!_**  
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**Cooking For Two**

Within the swirling vortex of moving, meetings, and matrimony, the newly dubbed Sybil Branson had very little time or even inclination to consider the mundane particulars of her soon-to-be-life. Upon arriving in Dublin, her primary energies had been spent on winning over the dour, suspicious faces of her beloved's kinfolk, and, once achieved, had moved on to planning and preparing for her nuptials.

But several weeks into wedded bliss, after the church bells had faded into far-off echoes and the soft, pink petals of her bouquet had withered to brown, crunchy flakes, she knew it was time to get down to brass tacks: grocery shopping, laundering, sweeping floors, and cooking quaint, home-style dinners for two.

Branson was quick to contest the final point. Rather vehemently.

"I didn't marry you so _you_ could become _my_ servant!" he exclaimed. "I don't need a maid, or a cook. _Especially_ not a cook," he said with a small shudder.

Sybil looked confused. "Then what shall we eat? Shall you cook? Are we to hire a cook? Will we just go out for all our meals?" She frowned. "Won't that get rather expensive?"

Her protestations rambled innocently along as Branson stood mute, struggling for answers. Little could his dear wife have known that the bulk of his modernity concerning the allotment of household tasks had little to do with progressive ideals and much with his unfortunate experience with her suspect and far from esculent cooking abilities. But at the moment, with Sybil's severe eyes demanding explanation, he knew the truth would never answer, and decided this clash of wills would best be resolved by flight. With one quick kiss to Sybil's cheek he fled hastily out the door, a weak "I'll see you after work, love!" issuing from his wake.

Sybil huffed about as she cleared away the breakfast things, disregarding her husband's concern and strange behavior. After all, he was just being silly! Almost insulting, really, thinking she, Sybil Branson, could not get her hands good and dirtied. Stopping mid-scrub, she set the mug in her hand into the basin of sudsy water, gazing soulfully out the window with a rather bold profile. She was no longer the dainty miss of her youth, oh no! She was empowered. She was free. _She Was Woman_.

It was with this slogan in mind that she made her way to the local market that morning, traversing the loud and crowded lanes by herself for the very first time. Looped about her arm rested an adorable wicker basket with which she would carry home her purchases, much like the butcher's wife or baker's daughter she recalled from her adolescence, those capable woman who strode about Grantham village with aplomb.

Her first stop was at the vegetable stand, where with great care and little acumen she picked out a batch of semi-wilted green beans. Surely their lack of vibrancy must mean some kind of reduced cooking time, and it seemed perfectly acceptable to her mind to consider them as practically cooked already. Settling the bundle into her basket, she applauded herself for her foresight. Efficiency, yes, that was the key to being successful in this new life!

With considerable pluck she next elbowed her way through the roving masses towards the distinct sound of clucking. A half-lidded lady missing roughly three-quarters of her teeth stood behind a makeshift counter with several rows of caged birds squawking behind her.

"I'd like a chicken, please!" Sybil sweetly requested, but with the authority of command hanging in her voice.

The purveyor dispelled a grunt and moved to fulfill the order. Sybil stood patiently by, expecting to be handed several pieces of neatly butchered and precisely trimmed meat, perhaps even already cooked – that would have been quite the bargain! – but with visible shock outlining her face was instead presented with an _actual_ chicken.

Alive.

Not dead.

"Heavens!" Sybil cried. "What ever am I supposed to do with this?"

The reply was as succinct as it was helpful:

"Kill it. Cook it. Eat it."

Sybil doled out the payment and hesitantly accepted her purchase, uncertainty clinging to her brow. She held the writhing beast aloft as far off from her person as her arms would enable her as it flapped furiously and its talons plunged painfully into the fleshy meat of her palm. Biting her lip, she worried over the first point of instruction.

_Kill it._

"What do you mean kill it?" she tremulously asked. "Do you mean right here, right now? Am I to throw it against the wall? Crush it under my foot?" A less apathetic shopkeeper might have laughed or scoffed at such naivety, but the lady simply gave a sleepy smile as she retrieved the chicken from her confused customer. Sybil leaned in, curious, when a sharp thwack sent her careening back, narrowly avoiding a direct hit with the lobbed off chicken head now sailing through the periphery of her vision.

The decapitated bird was promptly handed back to Sybil, whose mouth hung open in a word of silent horror. A delayed spurt of blood erupted from the severed neck clenched in her fist, and over the gurgling sounds of gore and her own belated screams of dismay she could just discern a toothless, "That'll cost you extra!"

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The senior Mrs. Branson was known around the neighborhood for her small yet tightly run seamstress business which she operated out of her little house on Aberdeen Way. Punctuality was key to her success, and what kept her customers coming back time and time again. With only herself and her ten tired fingers to keep things running on schedule, she had little margin for error, and even less time to spend on dopey-headed daughters-in-law who serendipitously just happened to live a mere three blocks away – a perfect distance for dropping in whenever the bread refused to rise or lighting the stove became too much to bear.

She heard several petit knocks in the middle of bustling a wedding train, and opened the front door to see said daughter-in-law bearing a sheepish look, a plethora of feathers sticking out of her lustrous, aristocratic hair.

Mrs. Branson pointed to a limp object weeping with blood.

"Dearie, is that a chicken you've got there?"

"Yes. Yes, it is." Sybil nodded seriously and lifted the pathetic beast to eye level. "You see I wanted…well, that is to say….I'm not quite sure…"

Mrs. Branson heaved a sigh.

"Come on inside, dearie, and we'll get it cleaned up."

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There were feathers _everywhere_.

Peppering her hair, tickling her nose, troubling her tongue, and she was fairly certain that downy feeling beneath her stays had not been present five minutes ago. Indeed, the only area in which feathers could not be found was the now naked, glistening chicken corpse.

"Well that's that," her mother in law declared. Sybil sighed with relief. The ordeal was finally over. "Now for the butchering!"

A half hour later Sybil's apron was markedly more blood-splattered. Her face was splattered as well, though with a different substance: fat dollops of tears stained her face, rimming her eyes with the telltale signs of sorrow.

"I'm a healer, not a killer!" she wailed into the gizzards.

Mrs. Branson sighed – "You're being dramatic again…" – and continued wrapping up the chicken portions in paper and placing them neatly into her daughter's wicker basket. She shooed Sybil out the door, and on her way back home Sybil pondered the macabre turn of her day. If she'd known part of the requirements for living a common life would be becoming adept at portioning recently slain animal products she might have….

Sybil stopped and took a mighty sniff, glancing down to the band on her left hand, the chain that would forever gird her to a life as a slaughterer. Well. It was far to late to consider _that_. She would just have to prove them and herself wrong. Yes, she would prove them _all_ wrong!

And prove them wrong she did, six hours later and leaving behind her a path of destruction in what had once been called the kitchen. Piles of pots wobbled, brown splotches of grease speckled every vacant surface, and she prayed that the hazy layer of smoke circling above would dissipate by the time her husband arrived home. But despite all these drawbacks, there on the table sat a steaming hot supper, freshly prepared by her own hands with ingredients she purchased herself.

Now all she needed to do was wait. Wait and listen.

In due time she heard the familiar jangling of keys and jumped to her feet, assaulting her husband with vigor before he was barely through the door.

"Darling, look, look! Look what I've done!" Branson was immediately accosted by the sight of his wife, filthy, frantic-eyed and with trickles of dried blood adorning her once spotless frock.

With a crash the contents of his arms landed on the floor and he rushed forward, pulling her unwillingly into a chair.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Sybil nodded.

"Yes."

He placed a concerned hand over her brow.

"Are you feverish?"

"No."

He stared intently into her eyes.

"Did someone attack you?"

"No, no, _no_! Don't be silly, Tom!" She shoved him away and rose again, gesturing to the chaotic splendor of their kitchen. "I've just been cooking dinner!"

Branson immediately relaxed – that explained everything – but was soon beset with a consuming dread. If she'd been cooking that meant soon they would be eating. The food she'd been cooking.

Luckily Branson had seen this scenario impending for some time, and had spent a good amount of his break time in front of the washroom mirror of his office, trying on new and hopefully sincere-looking expressions for the moment when a forkful of her hideous creations entered his mouth.

That moment was now nigh, and husband watched in trepidation as his portion was meticulously laid on a dish and set carefully before him, a pair of hawk like eyes trained expectantly on his face as he took his first, painful bite.

His fears were justified.

Sybil's "chicken" (he rather generously dubbed it) left much to be desired, such as seasoning, moisture, and the ability to be digested. Although the practice sessions had been helpful, Branson's expressions were naturally incapable of displaying anything but the perfect truth of his feelings, and at the moment they spoke plainly of thorough disgust.

His mouth attempted to speak otherwise:

"It's…it's _really_ good."

"Really?" she asked, aflutter.

He grimaced. "Really." A few beats of silence passed wherein Branson stared anxiously at the plate, no other bites forthcoming. Sybil's joyous features began to wane.

"I'm not sure," she said, her tone distrustful. "It seems as though you don't really like it."

"Well. You know. _Chicken_."

"But I thought you loved chicken. Your mother went on and on about how it was your favorite and if I had any intention of being a good wife then I had best remember what you liked and –"

"Sybil, please. That's not what I meant. I only mean that…well…"

"You think it's terrible, don't you?" she asked quietly. Branson appeared petrified.

"I think you worked very, very hard."

"And yet…and yet all my work was for nothing?" At this point she quickly shoveled a portion of her masterpiece into her mouth, only to instantly spit it out with a strangled noise. That noise was quickly followed by another, a hollow, dispiriting wail as the strong, the brave, the indomitable Sybil Branson burst into an uncontrollable bout of tears.

"It's terrible!" she wailed. "It tastes like old dishwater and it's as dry as sand! Mrs. Patmore said I'd never amount to much in the kitchen and she was right, she was absolutely right!"

What words could soothe such pitiful outpourings of melancholy? None that Branson could think of, and he found himself inexplicably in want for words, substituting vocal comfort with a sure hand that stroked fondly down her shaking back. Presently she mastered her emotions enough to look back up to him with a rueful smile, her kind eyes shining.

"I'm a failure, aren't I?" she asked in surrender. Branson had never before seen his Sybil look so defeated, and this time was fully capable of summoning a defense.

"Of course you're not! I'm not going to sugar coat things. You did fail, quite grandly, at cooking dinner." He cupped her chin and smiled. "But it doesn't make you a _failure_."

"I know you're right." She wrestled away from his grasp and smeared the last of the drops in her eyes against her sleeve. "And of course I won't get everything just so right away…but I'm not ignorant. I know what they must be saying about me back home, and what they're saying about me _here_, and I wanted so desperately to show them…I don't even know what, but I wanted to show them _something_."

"You're here, with me. You went to the market and bought food and butchered a chicken. That's so much more than anyone would think you capable. And maybe it's not perfect, but you'll get there in time. And in the meantime we'll just have to make do."

She shook her head. "But how?"

Branson patted her hand and rose from his chair with that familiar, infuriating smirk.

"I've been a bachelor for most of my life. I don't promise to be a whizz in the kitchen but I'm not completely useless, either." And a fair sight more useful than you, he added, but with the foresight to do so silently. Rummaging through the icebox for a few moments, he emerged with several white, oval shaped objects, and grinned.

"How would you like some eggs?"

END

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_Thanks for reading :)_


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